Does the Second Amendment protect an individual right to sell firearms to the public? No, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday in Teixeira v. County of Alameda, a landmark decision affirming the government’s constitutional authority to strictly regulate gun shops.

I read a lot of comments here (and not just from the count) which suggests that all Republicans are horrible people who are out to hurt everyone else. But out here in the outside world, I see something rather different.

Recently, I supported SB 17 to make drug prices for both public and private health plans more transparent. This bill requires pharmaceutical companies to notify health insurers and government health plans 60 days before scheduled prescription drug prices are increased and provide reasons for the increase. The goal of this bill is to bring much-needed increased transparency to drug prices, which can also bring prices down.

Yankees 5, Indians 2, Yankees win the 5-game series and go to the ALCS.

I'm only the most casual of fans, but any year when the Yankees get further than the Red Sox is a good year as far as I'm concerned. Just don't tell my New England neighbors or my Cleveland-area family I said that. ;-)

I'm also a bit confused, because you've often talked about some of the developments that have forced the Republican party in California to be moderate (I think you have, but I can't remember exactly what they were) If I'm wrong about that, but it seems to me that political parties have to have various oppositional conditions or they just end up fanatics.

She seems to be against the concealed-carry reciprocity between states legislation now zipping through Congress, Planned Parenthood gives her a 29% favorability rating, way too high, by 29 percentage points, for the absolutists in her Party (do they party? They look too glum for party hats).

But she does seem to favor clean air and water, as far as I can tell, for both pre-born AND post-born children, maybe even into adulthood.

She's against forest fires, but is a fiscal conservative. How's that gonna work?

Man, you need to read up on California Republicans. They went down the far right rathole earlier than the rest of the GOP (outside the deep South, of course). And a lot of them, a majority actually, are still there. Ms Baker, like a lot of (R)s, is moderate.

A lot, but still a minority. For now. However, the nut cases' hold on the party does seem to be easing. (R)s who hold local office (cf the Mayor of Fresno) have figured out that reactionary and xenophobic posturing doesn't get the streets paved and the trash picked up. That is, they are getting back to actually governing.

It will be a while yet, but I think we may finally return the GOP to sanity. It's the reason (almost the only reason) that I hold out hope for the party nationally -- albeit not soon.

I'd like to see Catherine Baker's political strategy for seeking higher national office as a republican.

I don't know that she has one. After all, we've got an incumbent (moderate) Democratic Congressman in a district which has a substantial Democratic majority -- it is, after all, California and the Bay Area at that. My expectation is that, when she term limits** out, she will go for the state Senate -- our (Democratic) state Senator will term limit out about the same time.

** Term limits are one of the bright ideas which we implemented to try to deal with "career politicians" at the state level. Unfortunately, all that got us was inexperience; and a lot of laws written by the only folks left in Sacramento who are experts in how the legislature works: the lobbyists. Whether we will eventually have the wit to emulate the Kansas Republicans and scrap it as a failed experiment remains to be seen.

Count, you left out her vote in favor of prohibiting (not just not requiring, but prohibiting) landlords from disclosing the immigration status of tenants. And the one in favor of (carbon) cap and trade.

She really is a moderately conservative Republican. Part of the reason I know that we aren't non-existent; it's not just me.

Again, Puerto Rico needs to solicit help from China and Russia. A Russian destroyer in port down there would get our white supremacist, racist, republican federal government cracking, despite the deep state full of decent Americans.

The roads would be paved, hospitals rebuilt and the electrical grid would light up like a Christmas tree with American republican pigfuckers finally under the Russian and Chinese gun, triggering the only fucking thing the former have empathy for, their own stinking, worthless white republican asses.

Also Iran, once they are forced to start building their nuclear arsenal, needs to deploy some warheads in Puerto Rico in self defense.

But a Chinese one? That would definitely get Trump going. And what a propaganda coup it would be for the Chinese -- probably irresistible. (And only imagine his reaction if Iran could somehow manage to get a ship with supplies, even a civilian one, there!!!)

Dimon would just gut it out further, drain any remaining equity, and try to list it so he could sell worthless shares to the public. Probably arrange a bunch of credit default swaps betting on a failure as well.

Kushner would just mortgage it to try and shore up the equity black hole at building 666.

Trying to decide if I want to see the Supremes take Robinson v. United States or not. That's the case where the 4th Circuit, sitting en banc, ruled that if the police suspect you are carrying a concealed firearm, the police can treat you as dangerous even if you have a concealed-carry permit. A 4th Circuit panel had previously ruled that legally carrying a firearm did not automatically make you dangerous, and police were limited in how they could treat you.

What does "treat you as dangerous" mean? Shot on sight? There was a recent tragedy at Georgia Tech where a student with mental health issues was killed by an officer because of suspicion of carrying a firearm (student had a Leatherman multitool on their belt).

Is the Court going to consider, as part of this brief, whether a person who is legally concealed-carrying shoots law enforcement in self-defense, after law enforcement has drawn their weapons and/or fired them, or behaved in any other threatening manner, that person is within his or her rights or not.

The Second Amendment is silent on whom may be shot, though plenty on the right assume it's government that was the originalist target.

In this particular case, full hands on the hood spread your legs frisking, and anything they find stands as evidence (it's not an unreasonable search if the police believe that you're "dangerous"). One of the 4th Circuit judges, writing in a concurrence, said that the majority danced around rather than coming straight to the point in their opinion: exercising your second amendment right means you give up some of your fourth amendment protection.

There's a whole bunch of cans of worms that the SCOTUS could open up if they take the case (they haven't granted cert yet). Eg, suppose the Court finds that in concealed carry states, the police must make an effort to determine if you have a concealed-carry permit. In my state, they would have to take your word for it: the state constitution forbids creation of a statewide database of such permits.

Presumably they can search you like that if they think you're dangerous, regardless of whether you're armed/permitted or not. It would be a bit perverse (although the way the world is spinning these days. . .) to have a holding where carrying a weapon precludes a search of a "dangerous" person, but aggressively searching unarmed folks is just fine. More incentive for everyone to carry guns, so I guess the armaments industry would welcome such a ruling.

Back to the original topic (even if it is an open thread). Michael Gerson offers this, discussing Congressional Republicans vis a vis Trump:
“Brave men are all vertebrates,” said G.K. Chesterton. “They have their softness on the surface and their toughness in the middle. But these modern cowards are all crustaceans; their hardness is all on the cover, and their softness is inside.”

I don’t generally have a lot of use for Gerson. But this time I think he's right.